Hospital’s Political Role ‘Neglected’

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31763, 21 August 1968, Page 26

Hospital’s Political Role ‘Neglected’

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, August 20. The Auckland Hospital Board has neglected the important political function it should exercise and taken on responsibilities outside its proper scope, says a committee of the New Zealand Medical Association which has prepared submissions to a committee from the Auckland board on future services and buildings.

“Government co-operation will not be obtained without strong public pressure,” the association says. “The board has a political function as the elected representatives of the people of Auckland and as part of local government. This function the board has neglected in the past. “We hope that it will make provisions to see that its political duties are discharged with at least as much vigour as has been exhibited in the

discharge of its purely administrative duties. “Medical care in Auckland will not receive adequate support from the Government unless the board is prepared to play its political role,” the association says. The board is criticised for its involvement in medical education, which has “obscured divergent needs and blocked academic medicine from going its own way."